New drug could help beat cocaine addiction

Cocaine addicts could be helped to kick the habit with a revolutionary treatment. A new drug has been developed that neutralises the narcotic's effect on the brain.

Drug treatment experts believe that, if given to recovering addicts each morning, it would protect them if they later snorted cocaine because the substance would have no effect on the "feelgood" centres of the brain it normally stimulates.

Alasdair Young, consultant psychologist and treatment director of the Craig Castle hospital for drug dependency in Peebleshire, Scotland, said: "The problem is that, however good a recovering addict's will is in the morning, if they go out in the evening they can be severely tempted.

"This would basically make them immune from the effects of cocaine and would be a perfect way around the problem."

He said the new drug would also be valuable for treating people who overdosed on cocaine, as it could neutralise the narcotic's effect before it attacked the brain.

The drug, called AME-359, was discovered by the Applied Molecular Evolution company in San Diego. Company spokesman Lawrence Bloch said it effectively chopped off the harmful component of cocaine.

He said: "If you imagine our drug is a pair of scissors, what we are doing is cutting the cocaine into pieces. If we do this before it reaches the brain, the cocaine will have no effect on the taker."

The new drug has already been tested on rats. One group was given an overdose of cocaine, with the result that all of the rats died within 10 minutes.

A second group, given the same amount of cocaine but with AME-359, all survived.

The researchers developed AME-359 by tweaking a protein to create what Mr Bloch described as an "optimised" version of an existing body enzyme.

Recent Home Office figures claim that more than 35 per cent of people in the UK have tried cocaine.

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